McAvoy’s practice of depicting found objects in her paintings continues with Tug of War. Here, objects from the artist’s childhood and from everyday life appear in abstracted form, as if floating in a pastel wash of oil paint. The idea of play takes on myriad meanings: a child’s game, the relationship between painter and medium, and the plastic properties of the remembered image.

In her 1992 MSVU exhibition catalogue essay, Carol Beatty wrote of McAvoy’s work, Source of mass-produced whimsical objects, the images here are pushed and pulled through space evoking the memory of their former use. In this work, space is activated in an abstract way. The dreamy journeys in Tug of War strewn with misty sailing ships, camels, caravans and sunsets, are grounded by kitchen tables and chairs, bringing her reverie down to earth.

Marilyn McAvoy has lived in Halifax since 1983, working as a scenic artist in films and teaches at NSCAD University.